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Our Goal
At Stack Smarts, we aim to help you out with simple, actionable tips to master budgeting, invest wisely, and secure your crypto wealth—helping you stack smart and kill the game!
Stack Finance
Dollar Cost Averaging
Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)—a smart, low-stress way to dip into investing, especially with a volatile market like the crypto markets.
DCA means putting in a fixed amount (like $100) at regular intervals (say, weekly), no matter the price. When crypto dips, you grab $100 worth; when it spikes, you still snag $100 worth. Over time, this smooths out your cost, skipping the stress of timing the market. The only catch is you’ll need to do a little homework on what to buy, but if I were tossing out advice (which I’m not, since I’m no financial advisor), I’d suggest low-risk ETFs tracking the S&P 500 or Bitcoin and ETH for easing into crypto DCA.
Start with whatever you can spare—$10 a week works! Getting in the game is the purpose here.
Stack Toolbox
The last people you want up your ass are the IRS!
CoinLedger is the best way to track your crypto cost basis and make damn sure every penny you owe is paid, so Mr. IRS don’t come knocking.
Click below to grab your FREE CoinLedger account—upload your wallets and start tracking all your crypto moves!
Stack Start
Exchanges!
This is very important when it comes to buying crypto—you can’t even start without an account.
With so many to choose from which one should you pick?
Coinbase is the biggest exchange and a great place to kick off, but Kraken and Gemini are killer options too. I personally use Kraken for its low fees, though deposit cash first—using a debit card tacks on a 3.75% + $0.25 fee on top of trades.
These are all centralized exchanges, and you can’t go wrong with the top three: Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini.
Down the road, we’ll break down centralized and decentralized exchanges—showing how they stack up and weighing the pros and cons of each one.
For now, start with one of these regulated exchanges we covered today.
Next week, we’re diving into buying and storing crypto from start to finish—don’t miss it for a full rundown to get you going strong!
Stack Assets
If you’ve been in crypto long enough, you’ve heard the tale of FTX and why leaving your crypto on exchanges is a bad idea
The mantra “not your keys, not your crypto” rings true in the crypto community, and the FTX collapse drives this home.
In 2022, FTX imploded when Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in December, charged with fraud and money laundering for misappropriating $8-10 billion in customer funds, funneled to his hedge fund, Alameda Research.
By April 2023, $7.3 billion was recovered, but many users suffered heavy losses.
The lesson is clear: don’t leave your crypto on exchanges! Instead, store it in a self-custodied wallet, like a hardware device (e.g., Ledger or Trezor), for full control.
If you must keep assets on an exchange, choose one with transparent proof-of-reserves, like Coinbase, Kraken, or Gemini, which regularly audit to confirm customer funds are backed.
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) with an authenticator app or hardware key, use a unique password, and monitor account activity with notifications.
Keep only what’s needed for trading on the exchange, transfer the rest to your wallet, and avoid phishing scams by verifying URLs.
Finally, diversify across exchanges to minimize risks from fraud or insolvency, but always remember to keep your crypto off exchanges and only have your assets on them if absolutely necessary.
Stack Crypto
Big shit has been happening in D.C this week.
This week, nicknamed “Crypto Week,” the U.S. House of Representatives is tackling three major bills that could shape how crypto works in America.
The GENIUS Act is all about stablecoins. Stablecoins are crypto coins tied to something steady, like the dollar, to keep their value stable. This bill sets rules to make sure these coins are backed by real money and aren’t scheming and scamming investors, which obviously makes them safer to use.
It passed a key vote today, July 16th, and on target to be presidents desk for signing which would be the first major crypto bill to reach the oval office!
The Clarity Act sorts out who’s in charge—basically, it decides whether crypto is overseen by the stock market folks (SEC) or the commodity folks (CFTC), so everyone knows the rules. It’s moving forward but hit some snags because some lawmakers want more protections for regular people. A lot of the crypto scene was upset about this, but I believe this will be a positive thing for retail investors in the end. I mean the whole damn point of crypto is to be decentralized.
Lastly, and in my opinion the most crucial, the Anti-CBDC Act. This bill is trying to stop the government from launching a digital dollar, which some fear could let the feds monitor your every transaction and ruin the chance for a non-government currency that can’t be inflated endlessly. Crypto’s our shot at keeping money free!
I think a CBDCs would be a big step toward the government controlling our money. They could decide what we’re allowed to buy—stuff like flights, gas, or even groceries—based on their rules or if they don’t like what we’re doing. Every purchase could be tracked, giving them power to limit our choices.
Crypto’s our way to keep money free from that kind of grip
If these bills pass the House, we’ll get clearer crypto rules, making it less like the wild west and far less intimidating for big companies and regular folks to invest confidently